1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to using diffractive optics to correct input light beams. In particular, the present invention is directed to diffractive optics which form a soft aperture to aid in circularizing a non-circular input beam as well as integration of the soft aperture diffractive optics with a refractive and/or further diffractive element used to collimate and correct an input beam forming a single element.
2. Description of Related Art
Laser diodes are compact, efficient, inexpensive and capable of mass production. This has lead to an increasing number of applications for which laser diodes are used. However, the active region of the laser diodes is quite small and asymmetric. This results in a small and asymmetric beam waist. Consequently, the beam divergence is severe and asymmetric.
Failure to correct the ellipticity of the beam is sometimes unimportant, but many applications require collimated outputs with low optical aberrations. If the beam is to be collimated for a particular application, the far field beam divergence will be different in the two directions. Thus, the ellipticity of the beam must be corrected by a subsequent optical system. Astigmatism is a further property of laser diodes which presents an additional potential disadvantage in many applications. This astigmatism is also corrected most advantageously by a subsequent optical system.
There have been numerous design solutions for collimating and correcting wavefronts of diode lasers. One such solution includes using conventional cylindrical lenses to collimate each axis independently. However, the performance of such cylindrical lenses is degraded for more asymmetric beams, since skew rays cannot be corrected, and is hard to align.
Another configuration is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,229,883 to Jackson et al. As can be seen in FIGS. 2 and 3 of Jackson et al., a cylindrical lens 22 is used in conjunction with a binary optical element 28. The binary optical element 28 is designed such that each ray of light from the diverging input light source will travel the same optical path length or vary from the optical path length by a discrete multiple of the wavelength of the light traveling from its source to its exit from the front surface of the binary optical element. While the low horizontal divergence may typically be collimated with cylindrical optical elements with few resulting aberrations, collimation of the fast vertical divergence requires optical elements with increased optical power at a much lower f number which generally results in increased optical aberrations with the collimated output.
The cylindrical lens 22 is used to collimate the laser diode's output in the fast axis. Binary optics 28 include a substrate on which a binary optical diffraction pattern is etched. The binary optic diffraction pattern is typically an eight phase level structure which corrects for optical path differences inherent in the divergent light. The binary optical element collimates the slow axis divergence and corrects for skew ray aberration of rays not in either the fast or slow axis. These additional corrections are inherent in a binary optical element whose diffraction pattern is chosen so as to have each optical ray travel in equal optical path lengths or an optical path length that varies from that equal optical path length by integer multiple of the wavelength of light traveling therethrough.
In order to provide proper correction of the beam output from the laser diode 10, the cylindrical lens 22 and the diffractive optical element 28 in the Jackson et al. configuration must be both properly positioned along the optical axis, but also rotationally aligned with one another. This rotation alignment is crucial, since the different axes are treated differently. This rotational alignment can be difficult and sensitive, requiring expensive continuous rotational alignment.
When two elements, both providing optical power, need to be aligned, often active alignment is required. Active alignment is performed by turning on a beam and continuously adjusting the optical elements until a desired beam is achieved. Such active alignment is difficult and expensive. When optical power is provided by both elements, optimal alignment of a single element alone may not provide satisfactory alignment with the other optical element to provide the optimum results for the system as a whole.